The purpose of the present invention is to provide a means whereby musicians who possess facility with a keyboard instrument can simulate the techniques associated with a stringed instrument performance such as a guitar. There are certain nuances about the way notes are performed on a guitar that are difficult to emulate on other controllers, particularly keyboards. The guitar has at least two particular characteristic features about its performance which differ from a performance conducted on a keyboard. A guitar can be strummed and notes of a particular chord become an output as a timed sequence of notes rather than a simultaneous presentation of the notes of the chord. Also, the width of the voices of any particular chord played on a guitar is much broader than those of a corresponding chord played on a keyboard.
A guitar musician, in voicing a chord, can strum the notes of the chord as a time sequence. This is contrasted to a keyboard where the notes are played simultaneously with the five fingers of a hand. Thus, in playing a chord on a keyboard, normally all of the notes constituting the chord will be played simultaneously, or if sequence, much slower, as contrasted to the time sequence presentation of these notes with the guitar.
The delay in strumming a chord on a guitar is of the order of 10 to 15 milliseconds and is audibly distinct from either a simultaneous chord or a slow fingering. The nuance of strumming the notes or arpeggiating the notes rather than playing them simultaneously or slowly as a chord constitutes a very important musical characteristic of the guitar. This particular characteristic, while not impossible, is extremely difficult to mimic on a keyboard.
Attempts to mimic guitar strums on a keyboard require a quick rolling motion of the hand. Many keyboard players at some point in their careers have attempted to learn this technique; however, it is extremely difficult and unnatural. Further, in strumming a guitar the strum can either be down, up, bi-directional or repeated. Thus, it is simply not enough for a keyboard player to learn to roll the hand in one direction in trying to emulate a guitar. The keyboardist must attempt to become proficient in rolling in both directions. Because it is all but impossible even to master a rolling technique in one direction, emulation of a guitar strum is most difficult if not impossible for keyboard players.
The keyboard is limited in the width of the voice of a chord because of the constraints placed on it by the size of the hand. At best, the spread of a keyboardist's hand limits the individual notes of a chord to slightly over one octave. In contrast, the voices of a guitar cover a range of at least four octaves much of the time. The natural tuning of a six string guitar ranges across two full octaves from the lowest E string to the highest E string. Further each string ranges across essentially a further two octaves. In fingering of chords against the frets of a guitar it is not at all unusual for the guitarist to utilize this four octave range. This range in the guitar voicing is inherently unavailable to the keyboard player.
Accordingly, it is the principal purpose of the present invention to provide a method in an emulator apparatus for a keyboard musician or other music source, such as a computer, horn controller or other polyphonic instrument to play as though they had a guitar technique, including the altered voicings particular to the guitar and other string instruments and the arpeggiation or flam associated with the strum technique of a guitar. In this way the characteristic guitar sound, through an emulator, can be directly included within the group of instruments that can be simulated with a keyboard; so that, if a song or piece of music is written to call for or include a guitar, it is possible to emulate the guitar sound.
Electronic communication between a keyboards and synthesizers or other devices is facilitated utilizing a music industry standard communication reference known as MIDI. It is a further purpose of this invention to utilize this MIDI standard in emulating a guitar sound from a keyboard.